The Wolves of Konoha
by Occupare Tenebris
Summary: After watching a pack of wolves work together, Naruto decides to put aside his pride and work together with the one person no one expected him to be able to get along with, in order to overcome any challenges they will face. Along with the Uchiha prodigy, nothing could stand in their way. No Yaoi. Friendship fic.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Notes: Hey everyone! This is my first fanfic, so please don't hate on me too much if I make mistakes. If you see something that is wrong, just drop a review or pm me and I'll try to fix it as quickly as I can. Thanks and enjoy the story!**

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"You'll never catch me you bastards!" screamed the ten-year old as he ran as fast as his legs could carry him in his escape from the angry men chasing after him because of his latest prank.

"Get back here you brat!" The older men were a couple blocks behind the blond child, being unable to keep up with the young kid as he weaved around the other people walking down the street.

"All I did was set off a couple of stink bombs," Uzumaki Naruto yelled behind him as he continued to outrun his pursuers. "I was just doing you a favor since you smelled so bad you old geezers!"

Seeing the gate at the entrance of the village coming up, Naruto figured he could lose the guys following him by hiding out in the forest until they gave up and head home afterwards. "Later, loser," screamed the academy student as he sprinted out the gate and into the trees.

The Chunin guarding the gate were too surprised by what was going on to react in time to prevent Naruto from leaving the village and could only watch as he disappeared from sight with the mob of men smelling like they bathed in dog crap following after him.

"Well, you don't see that every day," Izumo said as Kotetsu just scratched his head trying to understand what just happened.

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From his vantage point on top of a branch near the top of one of the many trees in the forest that surrounds Konohagakure no Sato, Naruto waited until he could no longer hear the voices of the men that chased him out of the village. "Finally," Naruto said to himself and he dangled his legs of the branch, slowly kicking them back and forth as a small way of amusing himself while he waited for his pursuers to give up and go home.

Looking up at the sky, Naruto noticed that the sun had disappeared, and the moon had risen to take its place, surrounded by the myriad of stars only visible after the sun sank past the horizon and allowed the stars to come out for anyone looking upwards to see. 'I must have been out here longer than I thought if it's already dark,' Naruto thought as he felt the cool nighttime air make him shiver as the loss of heat the sun provided during the day made itself known.

Deciding that it was about time to head back to the village and hopefully make it to Ichiraku Ramen before old man Teuchi closed up shop. Right before Naruto could take off to feed his ramen addiction, he heard a soft howl coming from nearby. In the battle of what to do next, curiosity won over hunger, and Naruto started to tree hop in the direction of the sound.

Coming to a stop next to a large clearing, Naruto looked down to see the source of the howls he heard earlier. A group of six wolves were meeting in the clearing, with the howl from earlier just a signal to bring the pack together. As the wolves started to trot out of the away from the tree Naruto was hiding in, he decided to follow the pack, figuring that he could just get a couple bowls of ramen tomorrow to make up for missing it today.

Following the wolves from a safe distance in the trees in order to avoid detection, Naruto watched as the pack continued on in a seemingly random direction until the lead wolf stopped and turned its head towards its right, sniffing the air as if searching for something. Naruto started to panic, thinking that he had been noticed. Just as Naruto was about to leave for the village, the wolf took off in a different direction than where Naruto was hiding, making Naruto calm down as he followed along with the rest of the pack.

After running for a few minutes, the lead wolf slowed down and started to sniff around more. The rest of the pack caught up with it and watched as the wolf stopped sniffing and inched its way towards an inconspicuous hole in the ground. As the wolf got closer to the hole, Naruto could hear the entire pack quietly growling at the hole just as two rabbits darted out of their home and raced away from the predators.

The pack of wolves gave chase to the pair of rabbits as they desperately tried to escape the painful fate that would come if they were caught by the hungry wolves. Naruto watched the wolves dipping in and out of the foliage, slowly starting to surround the rabbits as the pack spread out encircle their frightened white-tailed prey. Noticing they were surrounded, the two rabbits stopped and hid behind a tree, hoping that the wolves would leave. The wolves only moved closer, however, and slowly crept towards the rabbits.

Just as the first wolf crouched, ready to launch itself at the rodents, a loud roar came from a nearby cave. Standing on his back haunches stood a large bear, over three times Naruto's size. While the wolves came together to rally against the new threat, Naruto saw the rabbits quickly flee to safety, eager to escape from the impeding brawl. Hearing the group of wolves start to snarl at the bear, Naruto snapped his head back towards the fight about to break out, just in time to witness the midnight black bear charge at the pack of wolves, ready to defend its territory from the invaders.

Knowing that attacking the bear head on would lead to the bear's victory, even though the pack had the advantage in numbers, the wolves quickly spread out, forming a wide circle around the massive beast. The bear, refusing to back down even though it was completely surrounded, turned towards the closest wolf and swung its giant paw at the smaller animal, attempting to score a hit with its sharp claws.

While lacking the strength to compete with the massive bear, the wolf readily made up for the deficiency with its speed, dodging the sharp claws and quickly retreating away from the bear. With the bear going after their pack mate, the other wolves dove at the bear's backside, digging their razor-sharp teeth into the fur covered back of the territorial bear. Roaring in pain, the beast shook the wolves off its back and turned around to attack the animals that caused it so much trouble, but before the bear could go after the other wolves, the bear's original target charged up to the exposed rear of the bear and clamped its jaws around the hind leg of the beast, preventing it from going after its pack. Falling forward, the bear could do nothing to stop the wolves from tearing into its flesh, until the bear eventually died from its wounds. Noticing the enemy was finally dead, the wolves all howled their victory to the heavens, proud of their achievement.

Naruto, seeing how the wolves overcame such a vicious opponent, screamed "Yeah!" while throwing a punch into the air before quickly covering his mouth and looked back towards the fallen bear to see if the wolves heard his outburst. After making sure they didn't notice him, Naruto relaxed onto the branch he was on. "That was amazing!" Naruto whispered energetically to himself. "Even though that thing was gigantic, those wolves still took it down, looking completely badass while doing it too."

While thinking about the jaw-dropping fight, Naruto couldn't help but be a little jealous, wishing he could look as awesome as the wolves did. Imaging a similar scene, though instead of the wolves and the bear, it would be himself and some bad guy which he heroically stopped from completing his evil plan, leading to Sakura swooning over how badass he was. With that thought in mind, Naruto started to backtrack towards the village with a smile on his face, picturing the kiss that Sakura would give him for his imagined deeds.

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**AN: As you probably noticed, this chapter is just the setup for why Naruto's actions will be different from canon. I tried to make it believable with how canon Naruto acts in his early years, while also providing the motivation for Naruto to change the way behaves. Next chapter will show the effects this will have on Naruto. See ya soon!**

**Occupare Tenebris**


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: Hello again! ****As I'm sure you've all noticed already, the genres of this story are Adventure and Romance. First thing I want to say is that, while I don't really have a problem with yaoi, I will probably never write a single yaoi story in my life, so please don't ask me to write it. Second, I know that I want to write some romance into the story because I think that it can be a great addition to a story if it's done right, so I want to try it out. Unfortunately, or fortunately I guess, I don't really have a plan for the pairings or whether I will just focus on who Naruto ends up with or if I will focus on both Sasuke's and Naruto's romance. So if you have the time, send me a pm or drop a review for "The Wolves of Konoha" and help me decide! The third and final thing is that I don't think I'm going to write any lemons for the story, which is why I put it down as rated T. However, if I get enough people asking for me to do so, I will give writing lemons a chance and see how you guys like it. So with that out of the way, don't be afraid to say which way you want the story to go because not everything is set in stone. I won't make any promises about always doing what my reviewers say, but it will definitely be taken under consideration and will be a great help! :)**

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The day after his run in with the pack of wolves, Naruto sprinted towards the academy, running late yet again because he slept through his alarm. "Crap! Iruka-sensei is gonna kill me!" Naruto dodged the villagers in his way, ignoring the yelling he heard behind him as he accidently knocked over a man in his rush to get to the academy.

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Bursting through the door to his class, Naruto stood hunched over with his hands on his knees breathing heavily from the long run to the academy from his apartment. "I made it," he said before straightening up and looking around the class.

"You're late!" Iruka shouted at the delinquent. 'Though I guess I shouldn't be surprised since this definitely wasn't the first time Naruto has been late.' "Now go take a seat so I can continue with my lecture you so rudely interrupted," Iruka said as he turned back towards the class.

Naruto slowly made his way towards the nearest empty seat, depressed that he was late yet again. "It's not like it's my fault that my alarm couldn't wake me up, I'm just a heavy sleeper," Naruto mumbled to himself as he put his head down on the desk, ignoring what his teacher was saying, deeming it too boring to waste his time with.

"Naruto! Pay attention!" Iruka yelled as he threw a piece of chalk at the trouble maker, hitting him in the back of the head. "You should be paying attention to what I'm saying, especially since you have the worst grade in the class," Iruka said as the class erupted with laughter, causing Naruto to blush with embarrassment.

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As the class was outside sparring, Naruto watched as Uchiha Sasuke sparred with Akimichi Choji. Sasuke was much faster than the big boned boy, and he took advantage of that fact, weaving around the other boy's punches and landing several quick jabs into Choji's gut, causing the Akimichi to back up holding his hurting stomach. The fight continued on like this until Sasuke swept Choji's legs out from under him and Choji stayed down, unable to continue fighting. Iruka called the match after that, calling up Naruto and another student to spar.

Naruto couldn't help but be jealous of the last Uchiha. The black haired boy had everything Naruto wanted: the skills, the grades, and the admiration of his peers. While he wouldn't admit it to his Uchiha's face, Naruto knew that if he had been fighting Sasuke in Choji's place, he would have lost just as badly if not worse. And it wasn't as if Naruto didn't work hard; he spent a couple hours every day outside the academy training to get stronger so that one day he would be the one winning the spars, and Sasuke would be the one wishing that he could catch up to Naruto.

"Lucky bastard," Naruto mumbled under his breath. "What did you say, dead last?" Inuzuka Kiba said as he got ready for an easy win. "None of your business dog boy," Naruto said, getting into his fighting stance. "Whatever. Just hurry up and lose, so I can look good for the girls."

What followed was a short fight, with Naruto trying to knock Kiba out with one punch, while the larger boy just dodged everything Naruto threw at him. After getting sick of dodging, Kiba sidestepped the next punch from Naruto and nailed the blond Uzumaki with a powerful uppercut, lifting the boy off his feet and falling flat on his back. "Match, Kiba," announced Iruka as he marked down the result on his clipboard.

"You just got lucky. Next time I'll win for sure," Naruto said while rubbing his jaw. "That's what you always say, dead last. Just accept that you suck and won't ever be able to beat me," Kiba said over his shoulder as he walked away from the sparring area.

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Sitting inside his apartment, Naruto was thinking about why everyone was so much better than him. He knew it wasn't because he wasn't trying hard enough; he spent plenty of time training, yet he never seemed to get any stronger. Though he hated himself for even admitting it, Kiba was right; if he didn't do anything differently from what he's doing now, he'll never beat the Inuzuka.

"But why? What makes me so different from everyone else that I may never be able to catch up to everyone else? Why!" Naruto screamed, his voice quivering with emotion. Realizing what he just yelled, Naruto flinched, waiting for a rebuke or someone to hit him before he remembered that he wasn't at the academy anymore, but instead, he was alone in his apartment. "I'm alone," Naruto whispered to himself. The sudden insight hit Naruto like a pile of bricks. While he received a small amount of happiness by finally figuring out what set him apart from everyone else, it was completely overshadowed by the tidal wave of sadness that hit him afterwards. It was because he was alone that he couldn't keep up with his peers, because he didn't have a mom or dad to help him with his jutsu or taijutsu, because he didn't have any aunts or uncles to tell him stories of cool missions they went on when they were younger, or grandparents to spoil him, hyping him up with sugar before sending him back to his parents for them to deal with him. That was why he always lost; Kiba had an entire clan to help him get stronger, to give him the motivation to keep pushing forward even if it seemed like everything was going wrong, to give him something to fight for, something to protect. Just like with the wolves and the bear, if the wolf faced the bear by itself, the bear would have won easily, but since the wolf had an entire pack to help him out, they were able to overcome the stronger beast. And thinking about the rest of his classmates, Kiba wasn't the only one with a clan to help him either; Shikamaru had the Nara clan, Choji had the Akimichi clan, even Hinata, the shy and innocent Hinata, had the backing of the entire Hyuuga clan. All of them had people to help them, to care for them, to point out there mistakes and guide them towards fixing them. Except him…

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In class the next day, Naruto arrive early, making sure he got plenty of sleep the night before. Wrapped up in his thoughts from the night before, he didn't even notice that he was the first one to arrive. Walking to the back of the class, he sat down in the far corner of the room and crossed his arms on top of the desk, resting his head on them. Even as his classmates started to wander into the room, talking to their friends and generally in good spirits, Naruto turned his head towards the window and ignored what was going on around him.

After everyone filed into the classroom and sat down in their seats, Iruka took attendance. Working his way down the list of students in his class, Iruka quickly marked down who was absent. Finishing up, he gathered his materials in preparation for his lecture before looked up at his class to make sure they were ready to begin learning.

Noticing that everyone was behaving and nothing was amiss, a weird feeling made itself known in his gut. Normally he needed to tell the class to quiet down before starting his lecture, so he thought about what could be causing the unorthodox conduct of his class.

Discreetly screening his students, he noticed that Naruto was in the back corner of the room, silently staring outside and blocking out what was going on around him. Frowning, Iruka wondered what could have happened to make the normally happy-go-lucky delinquent so silent. Promising to get to the bottom of it later, Iruka began his lecture.

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Erasing the chalkboard as the students filed out of the academy building and began heading towards the training field for sparring, Iruka was really becoming concerned. Naruto continued his silent and depressed behavior throughout the entire lecture. He even paid attention during class, only spoke when spoken to, and didn't react when Kiba made fun of him for answering a question incorrectly causing the entire class to laugh at him. That was nothing like how Naruto normally would've handled the situation: making some asinine retort back at the canine-loving boy and loudly claiming that he would become Hokage someday.

Looking down at the sparring schedule he made for today, Iruka figured out exactly how he could bring Naruto out of his slump. Making a few changes to the matchups, Iruka called up the first two children to spar. "Sasuke and Naruto, get up here. You guys are first."

Walking forward with the Uchiha boy at his side, Naruto kept his head down, his mind still filled with the depressing thoughts that sprang forth from his epiphany last night.

Getting into position opposite of his sparring partner, a scowl began to appear on Sasuke's face as Naruto's attitude was becoming annoying. "Hey, dead last. Stop brooding and fight me or you won't last a minute."

Hearing the arrogant comment made Naruto snap out of his depression and focus on the upcoming match. Feeling his competitive spirit kicking in, Naruto dramatically pointed his finger at the Uchiha, giving Sasuke his best impression of a cool guy glare. "You're the one that needs to get ready, cause I'm gonna kick your ass right now and show everyone how awesome I am," Naruto yelled as he got into his fighting stance.

Two minutes later brought Naruto lying on his back while Sasuke stood smirking above him. "So much for kicking my ass." Walking away from the sparring area, the girls all swooned about how cool Sasuke looked while the boys were annoyed by the attention the Uchiha was receiving from the girls.

Seeing Naruto get up and walk off, Iruka smiled to himself as the class clown seemed to be back to his regular self, even if he lost. 'Although they act like they don't like each other,' Iruka thought. 'They help each other out whether they know it or not.'

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With the sounds of spars in the background, Naruto got himself back in gear. 'Enough of this depressed crap. Uzumaki Naruto is gonna be Hokage one day, and nothing is gonna get in my way!'

Watching two of his classmates trying to gain the upper hand on each other, Naruto thought back to his own spar. 'Although Sasuke can be a real bastard some times, he is pretty strong.'

Flinching slightly as he saw Kiba manage to get off a quick snap quick to the side of the other kid's head, sending some spit and blood flying from his mouth, Naruto thought about last night. 'Even though Sasuke doesn't have anyone to help him get stronger, he's still at the top of the class.'

Looking to the side to see what the last Uchiha was doing, Naruto only managed to get a quick glimpse before Sasuke turned towards him, sensing someone looking at him. 'Of course the bastard would happen to look this way just as I started to look.' Pretending to be fully focused on the fight ahead of him, Naruto waited until the raven haired boy turned back towards the fight before relaxing.

'How does he do it?' Pushing aside these thoughts, Naruto directed his attention back to the last fight of the day as Iruka called for the match to begin.

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Getting ready to leave, Naruto gathered his belongings before seeing Sasuke walk out the door. Impulsively deciding to follow him, Naruto quickly raced out of the academy to catch up with the Uchiha.

Deliberately keeping a safe distance between himself and Sasuke so he wouldn't be noticed, Naruto followed the Uchiha while being as secretive as possible. Eventually, Sasuke reached the empty Uchiha compound and went straight to the clan training grounds. "Come on out," the Uchiha said as he turned around to face his stalker. "I know you've been following me since I left the academy."

Realizing he had been caught red handed, Naruto walked out directly in front of Sasuke.

Slightly surprised when Naruto came out instead of one of his fangirls, Sasuke asked, "Why were you stalking me, dead last?"

Quickly getting defensively, Naruto yelled, "I wasn't stalking you, ya bastard!"

"Then what would you call following me to my home while trying to stay undetected?"

Knowing he lost the argument, Naruto said, "Shut up…"

Smirking at the victory, Sasuke repeated his question. "Why were you stalking me?"

Having not planned this far ahead, Naruto focused on his feet as he kicked around a few small rocks in front of him. Preparing to admit something that would fairly embarrassing, Naruto turned his head to the side and mumbled.

Beginning to get annoyed at his classmate's behavior, Sasuke asked, "What was that, dead last?"

"I said we should work together!" Naruto exclaimed before quickly shrinking back into himself, his face flushing with embarrassment.

Confused at the random statement, Sasuke stood there quietly while processing what the Uzumaki just said. After a few minutes, Naruto's blushed deepened, the embarrassment eating away at the courage he built up a few minutes earlier, and he started to get ready to take off so he could get away from the awkward situation.

"What would I gain from working together with you?"

Surprised at the normal answer to his previous statement instead of some sort of ridicule or some other verbal abuse that he had been expecting, Naruto fumbled around, trying to find some way to convince the last Uchiha to work together with him. "Well uh… I saw this pack of wolves before, and they worked together really well and stuff, so I figured that if we worked together we could help each other since we're both alone…"

After hearing the last part, Sasuke began to understand what the blond Uzumaki was trying to get at. Since neither of them had any family to help them with their training, the other ten-year old wanted to work together to overcome the disadvantage. While he never really got along with Naruto, Sasuke was willing to give him a chance, if only because they both knew the emptiness that came with being alone. "You still didn't answer my question. What would I gain from working with you?"

"Well, for one you would get a sparring partner outside of class to help with your taijutsu. And I could give a second opinion on fighting strategies and jutsu use too." Proud of himself for coming up with some pretty good reasons, Naruto stopped blushing and looked up at Sasuke, determined to get him to agree with working together, no matter how long it would take to convince him.

Sasuke thought about whether training with Naruto could help him or not, and he couldn't really find anything to make him say no. If there was anything he knew about Naruto, it was that he would work until he dropped in order to achieve his goal if he was motivated enough, and Naruto looked pretty motivated at the moment. And besides, if Sasuke didn't think having Naruto around was worth it, he could just tell him to go bug someone else. "Fine, we can work together."

"Really?" After seeing Sasuke nod, Naruto jumped up in the air screaming, "Yeah!" Remembering who else was there, he quickly calmed down but still couldn't keep the smile off his face. "So when do you want to start?"

"Tomorrow." And with that said, Sasuke turned and started to leave.

Seeing Sasuke walk away, Naruto figured he should probably try to be nice to him since they would be spending a lot more time together. "Hey Sasuke!"

Hearing his name called, Sasuke turned to face Naruto, "What is it?"

Rubbing the back of his head with one of his hands and giving his regular foxlike grin which was so big it forced his eyes to close, Naruto asked, "You wanna go and get some ramen with me?"

Shaking his head, Sasuke turned back around and walked off.

"He didn't have to be rude about it…" Naruto mumbled as he left to go order a couple bowls of the food of the gods in order to treat himself for the job well done in gaining a new training partner.

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**AN: I know Naruto may have seemed a little OOC this chapter, but anyone would start to doubt themselves if they never won in a single spar and was currently the dead last of the academy. Hopefully the way the scene where Naruto and Sasuke agree to begin training together was realistic. I thought I didn't do too bad of a job, but it's hard to be objective about your own work so tell me if there's anything that needs to be corrected. **

**Until next time,**

**Occupare Tenebris**


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